Real Vim ninjas count every keystroke - do you?

Pick a challenge, fire up Vim, and show us what you got.

Changelog, Rules & FAQ, updates: @vimgolf, RSS.

Your VimGolf key: please sign in

$ gem install vimgolf
$ vimgolf setup
$ vimgolf put [challenge ID]

Played Challenges

Simple, Practical, and Common - 33746 entries

Simple things we do all the time should be able to be done with very few keystrokes, but sometimes I find something I need to do makes me go, "There MUST be a better way." This challenge is just a simple movement and entering text at a certain place.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #71 / 7449
  • Number of attempts: 8
Swap values - 4644 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #475 / 1275
  • Number of attempts: 6
One number per line - 18780 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #787 / 3877
  • Number of attempts: 6
Swap values inside brackets - 2515 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #175 / 584
  • Number of attempts: 4
V to the i - 4824 entries

Input is 99 V's. Output is 100 i's.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #257 / 1899
  • Number of attempts: 2
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2900 entries

Remove identical text at the beginning of several lines and the closing parenthesis.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #106 / 859
  • Number of attempts: 3
Swap the operands under comparison - 304 entries

Swap the operands under comparison to prevent null pointer exception (at least in java)

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #15 / 103
  • Number of attempts: 5
Add semicolons - 10889 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #879 / 3076
  • Number of attempts: 6
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3610 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #107 / 1172
  • Number of attempts: 2
Com(m)a Trouble - 3890 entries

Someone was real stupid when placing his commas. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #239 / 882
  • Number of attempts: 4
Box it - 7939 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #565 / 1885
  • Number of attempts: 3
Hash staircase - 56 entries

Can you use a strategy to come up with this pattern?

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #21 / 25
  • Number of attempts: 1
Cool or not? - 836 entries

abc trying to be cool or not...

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #206 / 231
  • Number of attempts: 1
multiple cursor alternative - 1542 entries

from: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/6w5pfa/crosspost_from_remacs_how_would_you_do_this_in_vim/

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #234 / 384
  • Number of attempts: 2
Two pairs of cluster of letters creates word - 749 entries

Clean and group.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #128 / 178
  • Number of attempts: 1
Every other line - 2922 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #238 / 706
  • Number of attempts: 8
Copy three lines - 2875 entries

If the site is up (by some miracle), make the text under every header identical.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #115 / 641
  • Number of attempts: 7
Convert Application Output to CSV - 203 entries

Change the application output to comma-separated values

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #40 / 56
  • Number of attempts: 2
Kolakoski sequence -- level 1 - 74 entries

Generate the Kolakoski sequence as described by its first 75 terms.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #3 / 19
  • Number of attempts: 7
Search and Replace 0 - 5007 entries

Replace every instance of 'aaa' with 'xaaax'.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1210 / 1631
  • Number of attempts: 2
Number Sort - 317 entries

sort the list of newline-separated numbers incrementally. Numbers are in the range 1 to 1000, with 500 missing

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #100 / 169
  • Number of attempts: 2
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #671 / 701
  • Number of attempts: 1
Letterbox - 145 entries

Make a box!

  • Best score: 35
  • Best player score: 46
  • Position: #11 / 28
  • Number of attempts: 1
Flip the bit - 132 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #9 / 75
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11497 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #386 / 4215
  • Number of attempts: 4
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 1006 entries

A novice Python using prints Hello World! and a pro shows him different way. Using vim to get into pro style from novice, win the challenge.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 43
  • Position: #179 / 383
  • Number of attempts: 2
Basic renumbering - 5685 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #405 / 1270
  • Number of attempts: 8
Add to end of each line... kinda - 338 entries

Visual-block mode can be used to add something to the end of each line, even if they are of differing lengths. However, what if it's not quite at the end?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #29 / 175
  • Number of attempts: 2
Fun With The Diagonal - 107 entries

change the lowercase characters on the main diagonal to uppercase

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #62 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7967 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #27 / 2144
  • Number of attempts: 6
Vim's not included features - 244 entries

Filter not included (-) features in a hypothetical installation of vim.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #35 / 66
  • Number of attempts: 4
One to Ten - 2234 entries

Generate the sequence of numbers from 1 to 10, one number per line. Inspired by this Reddit thread: https://redd.it/ak4it2

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #40 / 679
  • Number of attempts: 6
Build a six - 305 entries

Just enjoy building "a" floors...

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #70 / 98
  • Number of attempts: 5
Increment each number - 1036 entries

Increment each number individually by one

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #4 / 252
  • Number of attempts: 2
snowflake fractal - 51 entries

From step 0 to step 3 of a fractal

  • Best score: 26
  • Best player score: 40
  • Position: #15 / 20
  • Number of attempts: 1
move titles next to url, in quotes - 539 entries

had trouble with something similar

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #80 / 144
  • Number of attempts: 3
Assign numbers to fields - 116 entries

You are given a list of space-separated strings. Add an increasing numeric prefix to each one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #10 / 62
  • Number of attempts: 2
unknown command - 168 entries

I want change 5 words

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #40 / 88
  • Number of attempts: 1
Collect List - 4308 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #72 / 1192
  • Number of attempts: 1
readability - 327 entries

Make the code readable by adding some spaces

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #60 / 152
  • Number of attempts: 2
I forgot quotes - 16051 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #242 / 4194
  • Number of attempts: 8
-a-b-c- - 3216 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #117 / 1138
  • Number of attempts: 5
Count both ways - 1022 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #303 / 354
  • Number of attempts: 2
Gray area - 747 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #80 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 4
Don't know what this is - 2024 entries

Replace contents of brackets with matching number of spaces. Don't ask what the format's supposed to be.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #47 / 586
  • Number of attempts: 7
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10699 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #777 / 3695
  • Number of attempts: 3
Words in parens - 12969 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #593 / 3970
  • Number of attempts: 9
Shebangs for all - 2039 entries

We've all seen or used a shebang once or twice. Ditch the specific paths and leave just a dynamic Ruby and Python bath behind.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #34 / 521
  • Number of attempts: 8
Almost encrypted - 204 entries

Convert the first paragraph to be even less readable.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #111 / 146
  • Number of attempts: 2

Contributed Challenges

Build a six - 305 entries

Just enjoy building "a" floors...

Two pairs of cluster of letters creates word - 749 entries

Clean and group.

Cool or not? - 836 entries

abc trying to be cool or not...

T A
Twitter:

entered into 49 challenges

contributed 3 challenges